Introduction

According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Programme (2005) about one-third of all armed conflicts in the post-cold war world era have taken place in African countries (Cited in Harbom and Forsberg, 2005). On a global ratio, Africa in 2004, accounted for 10 out of 30 armed conflicts. Most of these conflicts have been intrastate in nature, but in several cases, as in West Africa and the Great Lakes region, they ‘crossed border’ and mutated into crossborder or the so-called ‘networked’ wars. A lot of these wars have their roots in historically constructed social contradictions and inequities that have alienated large sections of the citizenry, the foreclosure of peaceful change by authoritarianism and repression, and an altered global context following the end of the cold war. Increased transborder flows of people, goods and arms, and decades of misrule and socio-economic crises also contributed to the outbreak of these wars. In most cases, the trigger for the descent into violent conflict lay in the combination of political and economic policies that deepened social contradictions, and resulted in the massive erosion of the state's welfare role(s) and capacities in the face of globally-led reforms.